In a two-component development system, the ability to apply sufficient developer (toner and carrier) to develop a latent image on a photoconductor is critical to the creation of images with high fidelity and quality. In general practice, developer “flow” is the common metric used to describe the amount of developer delivered to the toning zone per unit time. Flow measurement is accomplished by lowering a gate (2 inches wide) into the developer stream and collecting developer for a specified amount of time (0.5 seconds). This developer is then weighed, and developer flow is reported in units of grams/inch/second. Developer flow has been correlated against certain imaging properties of the developer, such as toning contrast, background, and so on. This measurement method, although useful, needs to be made with the developer station removed from the machine, requires a scale, and thus is not well suited for a real time application.